If I may, there is one solution that has great promise in this regard. I've already mentioned the Arctic security working group. In 2005, the group had the director of Health Canada come forward, and they had a discussion at which they presented to the body—I attended some of the meetings—the outline of the possibility of a pandemic of a respiratory disease that basically cripples the country.
We did a tabletop. We tried to have communications, but it basically stopped in 2005 or 2007. The Arctic security working group and other bodies like it have to do two things. First of all, they have to think of bad problems. We can't just simply assume these problems will not come. The second part then becomes practice.
If we were able to have the type of ability, and the funding, to see how badly we do things... It's when we see how badly we do something that we come up with the best practice. We then go forward and say, “We have this problem that we don't think is a problem. Pandemics. Let's pretend one actually comes, and see what the communications are like.”
If we had had more than a tabletop in 2007, I dare say we would have had a much better preparation for 2020. You need that big thinking. That comes from a constant ability to look at these problems as they're coming, and then having the necessary funds. Fund the federal government to say, “Okay, territories, indigenous governments and municipal governments, we're going to give you a bit of an open budget here to address and play out the problem.” You do that, and I guarantee that the communication issue that Sara was talking about, and many of the central problems that we have.... We will be that much better prepared for it.